Shaw's Eco-Logic

This HND piece describes some interesting research being done on gut bacteria, in light of improvements in genetic analysis techniques. Certainly, the friendly bacteria are vitally important to us, and it is no coincidence that 60-70 percent of our immune system is located in the gut, and is therefore intimately connected with the microbes.

There are some provocative early findings on both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, in that the gut bacteria profile is different, comparing diabetics to normals. One big question is whether this is a chicken/egg situation., and if you can eliminate diabetes by inoculating the sufferers with proper bacteria. Could harnessing our tiny friends be the key to conquering chronic disease?

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Think of this HND piece as a follow-up to a story from 2010.

We focus on yet another insult to medical residents—the heart and soul of our healthcare system. As an "experiment," the maximum number of hours they can work, which was recently lowered, has now been increased. This by ACGME—the very organization that lowered them. Welcome to the world of predatory healthcare NGOs. Too bad there are dozens more of them, and virtually all of them are bad.

It's bad enough that the feckless Feds are financing these, uh...studies, but the academic institutions behind the work actually claimed that humans were not involved. Oh, and neither the docs or the patients were told of these arrangements, thus totally violating rules for voluntary informed consent.

And you wonder why are healthcare system simultaneously sucks and is too expensive.

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This HND piece discusses the recently published finding that US healthcare spending increased 5.3 percent to $3.0 trillion in 2014. That represents 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

You might recall that O-care was supposed to save us money, but every single thing increased, as well as per capita costs.

So, now that the insurance part of Obamacare has imploded, and I promise you this will continue, the brain trust has no choice but to remind us about all the other provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Only, most of those, including the highly touted ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) have tanked, as well. In fact, the O-care fanboys resorted to dinking the number big time to make the ACOs look much better than they are.

Read the complete article.